Reviews

“Perfection exists in our world, Helprin suggests in this splendid collection, but it takes a quick eye to spot the momentary gleams. And for those who might not be quick enough, his writing preserves them, in a prose that is as glassy and smooth as amber.” (Los Angeles Times)

“God is in Helprin´s details. . . . He is a master of precise and lucid explanations. . . . His descriptions are small masterpieces, testaments to the perfectibility of explaining the minutiae of life, if not life itself.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

A “big important book . . . Helprin´s short stories should not be consumed in one sitting. . . . That these characters´ losses hit us in our gut is a testament to Helprin´s special genius – his ability to evoke a time and place so authentically. It is hard to imagine that he didn´t live through the Second World War or visit a newly liberated Paris.” (Esquire)

“Writers like Mark Helprin are a vanishing breed on the American literary scene . . . He writes without irony, without the wink of postmodernist qualification about age-old themes of beauty, truth and honor. These are the great qualities he has championed in such majestic novels as Winter´s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War . . . These stories sail across the page on a tide of precise observation and deft lyricism.” (Newsday)

“Gloriously rich and varied . . . stories from a master of the form.” (Publisher´s Weekly)